What is the Purpose of Religion? Primarily, religion was
originated by the Love of God for the purpose of guiding
unfortunate human beings to the fulfillment of true happiness.
It is nothing other than that.
As you know, everybody living in this world is doing his best
to become happy, but however hard he may try, things do not
always work out as he wishes. Those who do attain happiness
after striving toward it all their lives number only a mere fraction
of the entire human race. Not people, far from becoming
fortunate, experience one unexpected misfortune after another.
Thus, the things they have learned- while at school, from general
moral standards, from lectures by or the biographies of great
men, from reading such subjects in other books-- they rarely
find useful when they try to put such knowledge into practice.
Indeed, we are impressed by fine theories, but when we apply
them, things do not always follow the lines of those theories.
I am sure many of you have realized this fact through experience.
To take a familiar example, if you try to live by the principle
of honesty you are often regarded as soft-headed or foolish.
If you change your policy and employ a little dishonesty you
lose the trust of others, and if you're not extremely careful
you may be caught by the law. So, you may be at a loss as
to which path to take. Clever people think the best way to get
on is to assume the appearance of honesty, to wear an air of
complete innocence while acting dishonestly behind other's backs.
They believe that this is the best philosophy by which
to live. It has spread so fast that most people today have
become its strong supporters, and the strongest among them
become the most successful. No wonder the general public
wishes to follow their examples! I believe that this is the reason
social evils are not decreasing.
Because the world is like this, the majority of people have
come to believe that honesty does not pay. This is a world
in which honest people are considered unacceptable, rather
outdated, and those who preach righteousness are usually
placed at a distance, shunned. Thus they often become social
failures.
I constantly advocate the importance of a sense of righteousness
against such a world situation, so it is no easy effort I am making.
Non-members may think it is a silly effort; or, perhaps to them I
appear to be a cowardly or eccentric person with no self-interest,
like a stereotyped spiritual leader.
For this reason, I have often been an object of contempt or
ridicule in some newspapers and magazines, and sometimes
have been summoned to court. The reason I have been
tormented this way, I believe, is that I have boldly written
about the shortcomings of the mass media with the motive
of fighting social evil. Another reason must be that there is
envy toward the church work because of its rapid expansion.
As the saying goes, "Tall trees catch much wind."
Notwithstanding such oppression, however, our church has been
steadily expanding. It seems this reassuring strength must have
changed the attitude of some of our former critics, for we are
most happy to say that the severe situation has greatly been
lightened and matters are turning in our favor. That is, I believe,
because we always stand firm and never waver in the face of
any kind of assault, knowing that God is always behind us.
The reason I say this is that our church is blessed with the
strongest weapon that any religion has ever had.
As you study the religions of the past, you see that there
have been two ways, generally speaking, by which spiritual
philosophies have been advocated. One is the religious attitude
of advancing in the face of any opposition, brandishing
righteousness like a weapon. A typical example of this
kind was the Nichiren sect. It had to undergo a terribly severe
religious persecution because of its attitude. This worked
injuriously for the sect, and it did not grow rapidly during
the lifetime of the founder. It was only after several hundred
years that it began to expand, until it became as you can
observe it today. Yet, if those who advocate a philosophy
choose only a safe road in fear of persecution, it will take an
exceedingly long time for it to expand, if it expands at all,or
it will disappear into oblivion. Herein, lies the difficulty.
Thanks to the change of time, however, now that Japan
and the World have become more democratic most have
freedom of religion. Our church is greatly blessed, for
it is in a far different situation from that which it endured
before World War 2; that is why we were saved from meeting
with fatal religious persecution. In this situation, I am doing
my best to carry through my great policy of righteousness,
of justice, trying to eliminate evil and to advance toward the
goal of complete good in the world.
Now, let us proceed to the subject of the fulfillment of man, the
focus of this writing.
The most essential quality with which to bring about true happiness
is goodness, of course, but in order to express that goodness at
all times there should be sufficient power with which to overcome
evil. In the past there was not enough of this power because
the time was premature, and so the followers of popular
religions were not blessed with true, total happiness. So, people
in general gave up the idea of attaining material happiness,
they retained their longing for spiritual peace. It was to
satisfy this longing that Buddhism advocated resignation and
spiritual awareness. Christianity encouraged its members
to follow the example of Jesus, teaching that through a spirit of
redemption they could release all desire for total happiness in
this world. Jesus said, "Whosoever shall smite the on the right
cheek, turn to him the other also," because of his attitude of
non-resistance to evil. Thus, it was because they could not
overcome evil that most orthodox religions formulated their
practice of negating material blessings. They taught and still
teach that religions that focus on material blessings are
low grade, that those which offer spiritual salvation alone
are the only high-level philosophies. This is understandable.
However, such teachings came into existence as temporary
expedients, handy up to a certain time. Let me give you
a few examples of the point.
We often hear of people who have been suffering for a
long time and yet are satisfied and happy, they say,
because they have been saved spiritually. I believe they
are only suppressing their true wish, having resigned
themselves to fate. To me, this is a kind of self-deception.
If I may state the truth, one can enjoy a feeling of satisfaction
from the depths of one'heart only when one is completely
released from illness and any other problem on the material
level.
Also, since olden days there have been families whose members
have been sincere devotees of certain religions, yet they
have never been blessed with material things and they have
been continuously assaulted by misfortunes. It was perhaps
as a result of these facts that the mistaken idea has been
fostered that spiritual salvation alone is primarily what
religion has to offer.
The followers of our teachings receive material blessings
as well as spiritual ones; we might say that sometimes the
material blessings appear to be the greater. Think of the
fact that our church is constructing miniature paradises
in more than one place, including even art museums. Think
of the fact that all are being built with donations from members,
and that these have come through the members free will, for
it is the policy of our church not to collect money through
solicitation; we believe every gift should be voluntary. Of
course, we need a great amount of money to carry out such
large scale projects. That all the necessary funds are gathered
at our church in spite of the above mentioned policy is indeed
a miracle. From this fact you can imagine how well supplied
our members are. And the donations are not simply one
time gifts but are coming regularly in ever increasing amounts,
so we have never experienced any financial strain.
Another thing I would like to mention at this time, the age.
In those old days when various religions were founded, it
was right to live by a Shojo attitude of faith, and so it
was acceptable or even better for religions and their founders
to do things frugally. As the Japanese saying goes, "Spiritual
founders spend their lives clad in coarse paper clothes."
But we cannot follow that style anymore today. Now that
everything is becoming worldwide, we must work on an
inconceivably big scale if we wish to help save the entire
human race. That is, the bigger the scale of our operation
becomes, the larger the number of those who are saved
will be. When people come to know of the great plan of
our church, I am sure all will take a new look at our work.
Meishu-Sama
"Foundation of Paradise"
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